AI in the cornfields: How an Alamogordo startup provides farmers with a 'green eye'

A ground bot and a drone programmed with GreenAI, an Artificial Intelligence system that is used for collecting data around fields for farmers to be better informed. Wednesday November 14, 2018.(Photo: Josh Bachman/Sun-News)Buy Photo

LAS CRUCES – The perennial struggle between farmers and pests is nothing new, but as climate change progresses, some researchers predict warming temperatures are expected to give insects such as rice and corn borers a boost that could increase crop losses — and that's just one way climate change touches our dinner plates.

Meanwhile, while new tools provide farmers with real-time data about what's happening in their fields from furrow to canopy, Eugene "Cliff" Hudson says the sheer volume of data itself can present a problem.

"We live in a data-rich world, but farmers say they feel overloaded," Hudson said during a recent visit to New Mexico State University's Arrowhead Center for innovation and entrepreneurial ventures. "They need actionable, fuel-ready intelligence."

Intelligence was Hudson's specialty during 25 years with the U.S. Department of Defense, where he said he worked in robotics for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. He retired in 2012.

"We were putting weapons on target," he said. "Here, we're putting pesticides or fertilizer on target."

Hudson is now the chief technology officer for Systems Technology Solutions, which is developing data analytic technology that can be collected with robots, drones or even from a tractor.

The sensors can detect how many plants have germinated; assess the presence of disease or pests; prescribe nitrogen requirements or pesticide and fertilizer treatments; and monitor crop conditions through the entire growth cycle.

"We're putting fewer chemicals into the fields and in runoff into rivers and streams impacting the environment," Hudson said. Additionally, data collection could allow farms to alert one another about the movement of blight or pests through a region.

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Cliff Hudson, chief technology officer of Systems Technologies Solutions, explains how how an Artificial Intelligence system they build called GreenAI is used for collecting data around fields for farmers to be better informed. Wednesday November 14, 2018.(Photo: Josh Bachman/Sun-News)

The point, Hudson said, is not to replace human crop advisors, but to assist them in gathering and analyzing information quickly.

The sensor technology, called GreenAI (pronounced "green eye"), attracted a $20,000 investment, sponsored by the New Mexico Gas Company through the Arrowhead Center's AgSprint business accelerator program. It is also a semifinalist for support from the Genius NY business accelerator competition, which awards a grand prize of $1 million and four prizes of $500,000 to winning startups.

At Arrowhead, STS has also benefited from the talent of student interns and business advisers as Hudson and a small staff prepare GreenAI for test marketing in the next growing season.

Recalling his childhood in a small farming community in Mississippi, Hudson says he hopes to build an enterprise that can employ some of the students who have contributed to GreenAI and their peers. "We've got to find a way to keep the kids in New Mexico," he said.

Hudson said AgSprint "helped us focus our product, and understand our customer and the channel to the market ... There's a lot more to a company than just having a great technology."